Trentonian editorial: Obama's Vicking

While most eyes are fixed on the fiscal cliff, President Obama continues to talk himself closer to the edge of another one: the Benghazi precipice. During a rare news conference, he added only more obfuscatory verbiage to the terrorist attack in which two American diplomats and two former Navy SEALs were brutally massacred on the anniversary of 9/11 while the Obama administration stood by and twiddled its thumbs.

A shamelessly sycophantic media are content with the mellifluous blather Obama has substituted for answers so far regarding what’s looking increasingly like, from a moral if not a legal standpoint, criminal negligence and coverup. But not even Obama’s loyal media Praetorian Guard likely will be able to keep the unanswered questions at bay forever, although they did succeed in holding them off until after the election.

Obama continues to hide behind a supposed pending investigation when he, himself, in a few minutes could provide answers to the key questions on the Benghazi debacle. Is he hoping to stall until a friendly Senate panel or his buddy the Attorney General confabulates a whitewash and the fallen are forgotten?

n First among many questions: Did scandal-ensnared CIA director David Petraeus act under duress when he reportedly, at first, echoed the Obama storyline that the Benghazi attack was merely a spontaneous protest over a YouTube video preempted by militants?

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n Why did Obama himself continue to spout this storyline, at the United Nations and elsewhere, well after it was known to be baseless? Was it because the false narrative advanced his dubious campaign spiel that Islamic extremism is on the wane?

n How do you reconcile the contradictory timelines and other clashing accounts given by the CIA, Pentagon, State Department and White House? Why shouldn’t people fear that the national security apparatus in a collapsed state of incompetent disarray and bureaucracy?

n Why did the State Department and other agencies ignore repeated pleas from U.S. personnel in harm’s way for bolstered security in Benghazi and shrug off other obvious signs of danger?

n If President Obama gave an order (as he claims) for all possible help to be rendered to the beseiged diplomatic outpost, why was no help ever forthcoming?

n Why did U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice (an old Obama crony) peddle the false narrative of a spontaneous protest on five network news shows well after real-time video showed the narrative to be fiction — i.e., showed there never were protesters at the Benghazi facility, only clearly coordinated, disciplined units of militants armed with RPGs and mortars?

To this last question, Obama added self-righteous huffiness to his evasions. He came to Rice’s defense in a patronizing manner, as if she were a helpless schoolgirl being being taunted on the playground. She was only giving “her best understanding” based on information provided to her, said Obama. In other words, she was merely parroting the party line? She “had nothing to do with Benghazi,” he added. Then why was she and not Secretary of State Hillary Clinton dispatched to the news shows to speak on Benghazi?

You can elude the truth for a while, Mr. President. But don’t count on that media front line to protect you forever.

Eventually the truth will come crashing through. Then, sir. you’ll experience how it feels to be Michael Vick.